Criminology Theories Based on the Movie “Blow” Why do people commit crimes? The study of crime and why some people cannot get away from criminal activities while others never have any problems have been examined for decades. The study of criminology targets why individuals commit crimes and why criminals behave in certain situations. This leads to a breakdown based on a true story of the movie “Blow” which tells the story of George Jung, one of the largest cocaine traffickers in the United States in the 1970’s.…
A major influence on deviance is perception; that is altered by factors such as race, gender, and class. Racial classification is only one of the factors that are put under a social hierarchy and scrutinized by general…
THE SOCIOLOGY OF CRIME AND DEVIANCE AC 1. In this essay I will be explaining the distinction between crime and deviance within society and be able to provide illustrative examples to acquire an easy understanding of them. Later, evaluate and compare some sociological perspectives and their points of views in terms of crime and deviance as well as recognising limitations about particular methods of measure crime.…
Elements of deviant and abnormal behavior associated with white-collar crime Deviant behavior is defined as any human activity that violates social norms. Social norms are the basic framework that help to keep our society organized and functioning. People that don’t or can’t abide by those norms are present in every aspect of humanity. Normally people will identify these outsiders and keep their distance. Mostly these individuals end up on the fringes of our civilized world, though there are certainly exceptions to this rule.…
Edwin Sutherland penned the phrase “differential association” to explain how people learn deviance. According to Sutherland’s theory, the environment plays a monumental role in people deciding which norms to violate. People learn their norms from family, parents, friends, teachers, and others within their community. People learn antisocial, criminal, or delinquent behavior, like other behaviors, from their interactions with others, especially in the close-knit circle of family and friends. According to Sutherland, people exhibit deviant behavior because they associate with people who behave in a deviant manner.…
The criminal behavior is learned in interaction with other persons with communication and the main part of the learning of criminal behavior occurs within personal groups. When criminal behavior is learned, the learning includes (1) the techniques of committing the crime, which are sometimes very simple, and (2) the specific direction of motives, drives, rationalizations, and attitudes. Differential association theory is one of the social learning theories that attempt to explain deviance and crime. (Sutherland & Cressey, 137)…
Criminology, the “academic discipline that uses the scientific methods to study the nature, extent, cause and control of criminal justice (Siegel, 2013)” is a field that has been in existence since crime could be studied and tested. For years, researchers have been examining crime and coming up with theories in regard to criminal activities. These theories set to explain the possible reasons behind a person’s participation in criminal activities. There have been many theories that have been developed over the years regarding criminology and the purpose of this paper is to discuss certain popular criminological theories and to apply them to real-life scenarios. The theories that will be discussed in this paper are Robert Merton’s theory of Social…
The degree of influence one receives from messages favoring deviant behavior varies by intensity, priority, frequency, and duration proposing that through interaction with others, individuals learn the values, attitudes, techniques, and motives for criminal behavior” (enotes 2015). This theory focuses on how individuals learn to become criminals, but it does not concern itself with why they become criminals. The theory predicts that “an individual will choose the criminal path when the balance of definitions for law-breaking exceeds those for law-abiding. This will be reinforced if social association provides active people in the person 's life. The earlier in life an individual comes under the influence high status people within a group, the more likely the individual is to follow in their footsteps.…
Deviance is found in all types of societies. Some sociologists such as, Emile Durkheim, believe that deviance is universal and not abnormal in a society. Durkheim puts his ideas of deviance into a structural-functional theory, which sees society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability. Whereas other sociologists, such as Alexander Liazos, believe that deviance is a result of social inequality. Liazos ideas fit into a social-conflict theory, which sees society as an arena of inequality that generates conflict and change.…
Within the vast multitude of social structural theories, two stand out among all the others. Shaw and Mckay’s Social Disorganization Theory serves as a unique theory that attempts to gauge the cause of the seemingly rampant crime occurring in society. Particularly, the Social Disorganization theory references an individual’s environment as a significant factor contributing to their moral fiber and ultimately their behavior. Henceforth, those individuals who are unfortunate to have to grow in an environment that is teeming with crime and composed of those with low socioeconomic status, they are likely to follow the common trend.…
Society has made bounds of progress over the past century developing criminological theories to help explain criminality, deviance, and conformity. A good theory provides a foundational lens for one to interpret and understand why a crime is committed. These theories seek to uncover more than what researchers have discovered in the past in order to understand every aspect of why a crime occurs. This research paper will evaluate five different theories; social disorganization, anomie, general strain, cultural deviance and labeling theory, presenting the theorist(s), theory premise, strengths and weaknesses and an analysis of how each theory has played a part in making me the person I am today. Ancient Roman Philosopher, Marcus Aurelius…
Leading theorist, Travis Hirschi, argued that previous theories on criminal behavior were asking the wrong theoretical questions. They were simply exploring the motives behind crimes and why individuals committed crimes. According to Lilly, Cullen, and Ball (2015), previous “theories did not explain who would be a delinquent and who would not be a delinquent” (p. 115). However, Hirschi brought attention to those individuals who were not committing crimes through asking the primary question of what is preventing people from committing crimes? Hirschi explained, “it is conforming behavior, not deviance, that we must explain” (Reid, 2012, pp.…
Sociological theories focus on demographics, “hot spots,” cultural dynamics, socioeconomic effects, labeling theories, etc. However, this perspective can be problematic as well. When we start to look at people as “groups” or “types” we begin to lose track of those people as individuals. Even though we can find similarities between people, no two people are exactly the same. So bunching these people together completely overlooks the individual characteristics that could be contributing to their criminality.…
When society looks at crime offenders, most people assume that the offenders are breaking the law because they come from a broken home, are of non-white ethnic background, live in poverty and belong to a gang. While some of these are true, others are not. Why do people commit crimes in the first place, what makes them think that is ok behavior or is this even preventable behavior that society can stop? These are great questions, which makes this essay take a closer look at how the influence of socialization can affect crime. Could it be that anybody is prone to crime, and could improper socialization have anything to do with the crime itself.…
Crime has been a daily social issue in our society for many centuries. The lack of control over crime has caught the attention of many researchers and academics who, from decades, have tried to study crime to seek solutions for this social issue. Crime has become an issue of interest to study by many sociologist and criminologist because it affects not only the victims of crime, the perpetrators, their families, but society as a whole. Theories after theories had been previously created to control crime rate and explain its existence, instability, and its links to dependable factors that were increasing the rate of crime among certain ethnic groups and disadvantaged communities. While some theories reasonably explicated their main proposition,…